Virgin Australia

Travelled Business Class Melbourne-Hamilton Island return in the last 2 weeks. 3 hour flight at $1600 return. Whilst the Cabin Manager was friendly efficient and professional the overall product is really substandard for Business. Seats with no footrest limited recline dirty and scuffed nil storage. No pillow or blanket available anywhere on the aircraft. They don't stock them even for Business. Refreshment on the way up consisted on a small tart tub of yoghurt and a roll. Nothing else. Lunch on the return no pre lunch drink a small hot meal bread roll and small cake. Not even a salad. No sparkling available and no bloody mary mix for a bloody mary drink. No hot towel. No amenities at all. IFE consisted of a portable tablet which is annoying to place on a small tray table. Again couldn't fault the Crew who were fantastic. Just a shame they have such a basic product to work with.

Traveled to Fiji and back. I won't hesitate to say that was my worst ever flight experience. Aircraft didn't had built in entertainment system for 6 hour flight from Melbourne to Nadi. Aircraft's seats were very small and aircraft lavatory was too small. I would say it was my most uncomfortable 11 hours of my life.

Flew to Adelaide for business and have to report two excellent flights with Virgin Australia. Both flights were comfortable and with friendly and smiling cabin crew. I absolutely love the Embraer 190 aircraft and it's nice to see a few of them lined up at Adelaide Airport instead of the usual 737 collection. I will continue to use VA for business travel and I enjoy their excellent on-ground and in the air service. Well done Virgin Australia.

My sister warned me against flying Virgin Australia but unfortunately it was booked as an Etihad flight. The cabin was clean modern and with good leg room that's where the compliments cease. The entertainment system was not nearly as good as Etihad very few interesting movies. The earphones were awful scratchy and hard to hear sadly I was so used to Etihad I hadn't bothered to bring my own. The food was awful the service non existent we only saw the attendants when they served food no walking through the cabin offering drinks during the night or the other attentiveness one enjoys on Etihad Singapore Airlines or any of the other great airlines. I would never under any circumstances travel Virgin Australia again.

VA 43 Brisbane - Denpasar on 29th June 2014. To be fair the flight was not so bad but I have to agree with other passengers that Virgin should really consider using a larger aircraft for this popular route as the whole journey took 6hours or so. Otherwise it was not bad at all. The seat felt big despite the standard 737 3x3 configuration. There was no inflight entertainment but most passengers had iPad/iPhone/Laptop etc to keep themselves occupied. The inflight magazine was actually quite a good read. The food was mediocre but I was not expecting 5 stars treatment after all so it was OK. FAs were fine. All in all a pleasant flight and will consider booking Virgin again in the future for other routes.

VA164 - AKL to Coolangatta 25 June. I wasn't aware VA was a 'budget' airline and 700 bucks constituted 'budget' tickets but clearly they did. Booked through WebJet some sort of cock up led to us being charged $260 to take a couple of bags onboard. Upon trying to pre-pay luggage for the return trip advised this was completely impossible by VA. However went to the airport on the return leg expecting another huge bill and baggage checked in without a murmur! Go figure. On the plus side no delays and got us there and back just fine. Don't much like budget airlines however with stupid complex booking tiers and inflexible attitude especially not for a 4hr flight so doubt I'd ever use VA again unless forced to.

MEL-OOL 3 July: Worst flight ever I think it was an old Ryanair aircraft seats did not recline there was no legroom my knees were diagonal to the floor seats are narrower compared to Jetstar or Tiger and there was no inflight live2air rather some silly streaming service which required people to use their own devices. I can't understand Virgin their seats and aircraft are horrendous but then they give people free wine and beer (imported Italian Peroni!). I tell you what Virgin keep your alcohol and take a row of seats out 30 rows in a 737 plus two rows of business class does not work I am still in pain from this horrible flight added to this it was an hour delayed and even while loading the aircraft none of the ground staff seemed concerned and loading was slow and non rushed really disappointed. I don't understand how Virgin thinks this is acceptable.

Travelled on VA 29 to Abu Dhabi on 24/6/2014. This was a code share with Etihad. I was booked business class. I have been flying business class from UK to Sydney up to 5 times a year for over 10 years this flight can only be described as horrendous. Seats are premium economy and although they claim to be flat bed they are like sleeping on a plank! 7 seats per row in cabin if you are in the middle of 3 seats you are trapped. My flight was code share with Etihad how can their be such a difference. The best advice I can give is make sure your flight is not a code share. Cabin crew unwilling to accept complaint re the standard of seating I am unwilling to say more other than beware. It is worthy of note that a number of passengers complained all ignored.

VA 43 Brisbane to Bali June 6. Flight delayed by approx 30 minutes due to crewing. Flight 90% full. We were fortunate to have purchased exit row seats so had a reasonable amount of space for the 6+ hour flight. Crew performed well under difficult circumstances (only 2 toilets at rear of the 787-800 - hence long queues and galley at rear of the aircraft). Food average and some beverages ran out. In-flight wifi entertainment adequate Due to the flying time and therefore comfort this route may be better served by VA with a larger aircraft as Jetstar now operates the 787 to this destination out of Brisbane.

Recently flew Athens-Abu Dhabi-Sydney with Etihad. We had pre-allocated our seating (2 seats down the back A&C) as my wife and I wanted to avoid people climbing over us at night. We got shunted to BC seats with A also occupied and Etihad would not change it or offered a reason. Exactly what we did not want. Unbelievable. The plane was only 60% full and there was no need to cram us into ABC seats. Unbelievable? We checked our original seat allocation and found a 5 year old occupying AC spots with parents in middle section with spare seating alongside. Pretty Poor. When I moved after takeoff into a spare aisle seat with no one beside me the flight attendant moved 2 people beside me in the middle of the night. Unbelievable again when there were spare seats around. Never again with Etihad.